On July 14, 2014 the Ontario Power Authority published the request for qualifications for the Large Renewable Procurement (the "LRP I RFQ"). During this qualification stage, the OPA aims to qualify applicants based on their ability to meet a specified set of mandatory requirements including past experience, technical expertise, financial resources and a willingness to undertake the development of large renewable projects in anticipation of new competitive procurement processes for renewable energy projects for up to 565 MW of wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy.
After the RFQ process, successful applicants will be able to submit project-specific proposals, which will include details such as location, size, and connection point. An important part of a project proposal is evidence of community engagement (e.g., with municipalities, Aboriginal communities and other groups). The procurement targets for each category of renewable fuel are the following: 300 MW for wind, 140 MW for solar, 75 MW for waterpower, and 50 MW for bioenergy. Given that, at this stage, the description of the projects is in rudimentary form, the OPA will allow for an increase of 20% of the cap in aggregate MW to allow for flexibility. Applicants must be ready to demonstrate the ability to make the necessary capital investments.
The submission period began on July 14, 2014 and will be closing on September 4, 2014. The OPA expects to run a subsequent qualification round in 2015 and it may run an additional round in 2016 if there is unused capacity from the previous years.
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